


I won't say (I'm in love)

by skyekingsleigh



Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Gods & Goddesses, Angst and Feels, F/M, Temporary Character Death, caroline is megara, hercules au, kc bingo 2020, klaus is hades, stefan is hercules
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-22
Updated: 2020-06-22
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:46:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24857065
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skyekingsleigh/pseuds/skyekingsleigh
Summary: “Here’s the part where we bargain for the life of your dear Caroline,” Klaus declares, flicking his hand and making the blonde woman disappear from the room. Stefan gasps, calls out her name, looks around to no avail.a hercules au
Relationships: Caroline Forbes/Klaus Mikaelson
Comments: 3
Kudos: 71





	I won't say (I'm in love)

**Author's Note:**

> Written for KC Bingo with the prompt: gods

There is a guttural roar, followed distinctly by a female cry.

Stefan feels each flex of his muscles with every pounding step, sure that should he look down he’d see cracks among the asphalt due to his mighty strides. There is formidable power in the way he draws his sword from its leather sheath by his hips, as well as a certain familiarity. He had been training with Lexi for only a quarter of six months, but the strength in his veins provided by his Godly father needs only the proper activation to come alive.

The second he enters the clearing, his vision tunnels to the woman hiding behind a conveniently huge rock, hidden from the view of a centaur wreaking havoc a few feet away, throwing anything from stones to planks of wood to her direction.

“Centaur!” Stefan cries out, flipping his sword expertly with a flick of his wrist. In his peripheral he sees his mentor, the satyress Lexi, watching the scene with her tactical eye. He doesn’t have the time for instructions, though, not with such a beautiful woman in trouble, and so he engages without as much as a blink of an eye.

The centaur dodges his attack with ease, snarling and spitting before acknowledging him. “Demigod.”

“That’s right,” he acquiesces with a small nod, unable to stop a small smile tugging the ends of his lips. “And not just any God.”

He doesn’t give the centaur a moment to take in his words before plunging his weapon forward, slicing into the skin just above the creature’s collar bones. Blood gushes out the harsh incision, but it does nothing to slow the centaur down.

“Who sent you?” Stefan demands, jumping just in time to avoid a kick in the loins.

The centaur is without weapons apart from two daggers tucked haphazardly in a worn scabbard over his chest but he makes no use of them, and Stefan knew better (from Lexi, of course) than to underestimate the power of his physical hits.

“Son of Zeus, how surprising,” He drawled, blocking another one of Stefan’s attempt to get a hit. He points to the rock where the blonde woman is still hiding with his index finger. “I am Nessus, and Hades wants the girl. I’m going to get the girl.”

Another slice of his sword that trims the Centaur’s tail and elicits a growl from the half-horse man, and Stefan huffs in half annoyance and resignation. “I’m afraid I can’t let that happen, Nessus.”

“Stefan!” The demigod looks over the Nessus’ shoulder to see Lexi waving up an arrow, the heads still gleaming from the poison they dipped it into that morning. Realizing the satyress’ plan, Stefan brings all he can into the lunge he sends the centaur’s way, managing to stab him about two inches deep in the side before sprinting towards his mentor.

“Will this work?” He pants even before he reaches Lexi.

The satyress gives him an incredulous look. “It’s poison. It will work.”

He barely has the time to grab the arrows from her when the blonde woman from the rock screams, “Look out!”

Stefan doesn’t hesitate. He turns around and plunges the four arrows in his hand, embedding them into the centaur’s chest. Nessus lets out a pained grunt, dark red blood spurting from his lips before the demigod gives him a light push and he falls to the ground. He’s not dead, not yet, but he will be.

The son of Zeus immediately scourges the clearing for the woman he so bravely saved after noting that she wasn’t behind the rock anymore, ignoring Lexi’s notes and critic about the fight. Finally he holds up a finger and shushes the satyress, making her huff but halt in her talking nonetheless.

He chances another look around, and there she stood, his very own damsel in distress, standing barefoot adjacent to him with her back facing Stefan. Her hair falls down in golden waves that rival the sun, skin gleaming porcelain only looking softer in the pretty pink dress she wore. As he approaches, he notes that there are small abrasions in the palm of her hands, most likely from digging them into the harsh edges of the rock she now abandoned.

“What does Hades want with you?” He asks with no filter, and the girl flips around just in time to see his jaw hanging open.

She is stunning; easily a goddess among all the women he’s encountered, and he’s met a few during his short bouts as a hero.

“Thank you for saving me,” she tells him instead, looking at him from under her lashes. “I only wish I had been the one to deliver the final blow.”

Stefan raises his eyebrows at this before finally letting a grin take over his handsome features. “I’m Stefan.”

The woman looks at him for a moment, eyes narrowed just slightly, before smiling back. “Caroline.”

-

Hades’ castle feels colder than usual, lacking the flair that greets Caroline each time she enters its gate of gleaming pearl bones. Instead of the typical huffs and growls of the hellhounds scattered throughout the ivory floors of the throne room, she is met only with dead silence. It’s enough to send a shiver down her spine.

At the center of the stillness is Klaus–or Hades to most people– sitting rigidly in his atrocious throne with his thumb underneath his chin and two fingers absentmindedly outlining the shape of his red lips. He’s always had a thing for dramatics, her Klaus.

“Stefan will be here soon,” she announces, voice echoing across the long room and waits for a response. When there is none, she continues, the clicking of her shoes the only other noise. “I’m certain he expects to find me gagged and bound.”

Klaus lets a hum rumble from his throat at that, finally shifting his eyes to look at her. It was a meeting of ice cold to her confusion, and Caroline doesn’t bother hiding her emotions from showing on her face. “Did you enjoy playing with your little demigod, love?”

“He’s sturdier than most,” Caroline agrees, though her tone is now tentative as opposed to her earlier casualness. “What’s going on in that big bad head of yours?”

The god only narrows his blue eyes at her, ignoring her question. “I, too, shall enjoy peeling his skin off his muscles, see for myself what intrigues humanity these days. It’s a pity I can’t let him live long; alas, I’ll take what I can get. Once he dies, he’s mine for all of eternity, after all.”

By the time he finishes speaking, Caroline’s already in front of him, standing a few steps below and peering at him with a look he knows all too well. “Stefan is a good man, Klaus.”

“Is he?” He lets the question ring out, waiting to see if she has so much as an answer before slamming his hands down the hand rests of his throne and making all the torches in the room light up with blue fire. Caroline visibly flinches, the sight only feeding to his rage more. “I’ll not let you ruin my plans just because you fell in love with a mortal, Caroline.”

At his words, Caroline musters a powerful glare. “In love? Is that what you think happened? You were the one who all but threw me away, made me bait. And now you accuse me of–“

“Of what?” Klaus snaps, chest heaving visibly. The hellhounds who were missing earlier slowly enter the room, sensing their master’s anger, growls sounding lowly from their beasty throats. “Of finally seeing sense? Please. Don’t let me stop you from pursuing your mortal desires, love. You have until nightfall before I get to sink my claws in his flesh, after all.”

“I cannot believe you,” Caroline raises her voice, chest flushed pink from her anger and disbelief. “I have spent years devoted to you. I do everything; make an accomplice of myself to every plan no matter how hard the guilt eats at me; all for a chance to make you happy. I cater to every whim, every cynical order, and you know what? I am done.”

“Because you’ve fallen in love.”

“I have not!” Caroline finally shouts. “Not with him.”

Klaus snaps his eyes back to hers, looking for a hint of dishonesty and deceit and finding none. He opens his mouth to say something, anything, but before he could get the words out the door to the throne room slams open, and with a flick of the god’s wrist, Caroline’s hands come together, bound with thick metal ropes and her pretty little mouth gagged by a black silk scarf.

“Hades!” Stefan shouts, sword and shield at the ready with a determined glint in his eye that only added to the god’s amusement. It’s been too long since he had a good play fight. “Release Caroline right now, or I shall steal my father’s lightning bolt myself and strike you down.”

Klaus grins, leaning back in his seat. He tries not to let his gaze linger too much on Caroline’s rumpled form by his feet, her muffled voice making the scene more effective. She’s always had a flair for acting, his Caroline.

“I’ve forgotten how amusing you little heroes become whenever you lot are faced with opponents such as myself.” He lets his eyes trail Stefan from head to toe in an almost clinical examination. “I must say, I expected better.”

Stefan looks at him with only more anger and hatred, the fool. “Release Caroline from her debt, Hades. She has already paid enough.”

“Is that what she told you, Stefan? That she’s paying a _debt_?” Klaus says the word as if they’re poison in his mouth, but there’s no discounting the mirth still shining in his eyes. Standing up from where he’s seated, he walks the short steps it takes to reach Caroline and crouches down beside her. “You haven’t been completely honest with him, have you, sweetheart?”

Klaus takes off her gag with such contrasting gentleness to the display he showed earlier, making Caroline almost forget the role she’s playing. The blonde is quick on her feet, though, barely sparing the god a glance before crumpling her face up and looking at Stefan helplessly. “Just go, Stefan. This is a fight even you cannot win.”

There’s a hint of truth behind her words, too, and it doesn’t go amiss to Klaus.

“I can’t leave you with him, Care,” Stefan says gently, as if speaking to a child. Klaus bristles at the familiarity of the nickname.

Caroline, for her part, shakes her head defiantly. “You have to.”

“I love you.”

This time even Klaus himself cannot control the growl from his throat, forcing himself not to look at Caroline in fear of seeing something there: reciprocity, care, even love for the boy. It’s a sight he knows he will never un-see, a sight he knows just might destroy him, wreck him permanently; he’ll not allow it that power.

“Stefan, go.” Caroline grits out. To the demigod’s eyes her binds look to be tightening, the metal ropes like vines crippling up from her wrists and spreading until her whole upper body is tied up. She’s panting like she’s unable to breathe, but in reality the ropes feel like soft caresses of calloused fingertips, or like a warm hug. It makes the acting all the more difficult. “He’ll kill the both of us if you don’t.”

The demigod then decides to throw his sword across the room with such speed and precision that if it were any other opponent it would have impaled them in the chest right away. Alas, he’s not just any other opponent. He is a god.

The sword stops only an inch from the intended target, and even Caroline had to fight a gasp, unsure that Klaus would be able to deflect it and relieved that she had underestimated him this time. The metal melts away, pouring to the floor in heavy drops. Stefan fails to mask the fear in his eyes, much to the hero’s chagrin.

“Here’s the part where we bargain for the life of your dear Caroline,” Klaus declares, flicking his hand and making the blonde woman disappear from the room. Stefan gasps, calls out her name, looks around to no avail.

“What is it that you really want? Why lure me here at all?”

The god grins. “It’s quite simple, really. You give up your strength for 24 hours and Caroline is free forever.”

“And people are going to get hurt,” Stefan predicts, shoulders dropping. “Why would you even go to all these lengths just so I’d give up my strength for a day? You’re a god. I’m hardly a challenge.”

Klaus narrows his eyes at the obvious bait but chooses to ignore it. “What explains the actions of the gods? Perhaps I’m just bored and it’s ever so fun to play with my brothers’ off springs.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“It’s a good thing you don’t have to, mate,” Klaus tells him icily. “Now. What shall it be?”

Stefan drops his shield to the floor, a clear sign of defeat. “Just promise me one thing; promise me you won’t let her get hurt.”

Klaus grins, “I would never.”

-

Stefan gives up his powers as agreed. Klaus haunts him down. By nightfall, the ritual is set and ready to begin.

-

“Is he dead?” Caroline does not bother to turn around from where she’s hugging herself by the window. Everything is metal and cold apart from the burning flame of the hearth at the center of the room. The bed is huge and comfortable, the sheets made of the finest silk and the pillows of the softest feathers, but she refuses to lay or sit down.

Klaus lifts a hand to trace the intricate patterns of steel lining the heavy double doors. “Not yet. He will not live through the night, though.”

“You don’t have to kill him,” this time she faces the death god, eyes pleading. She could see the way his face falls at her words, could almost feel the raw coldness seeping into the blue of his eyes, but she doesn’t flinch when he smiles sharply. “You just need a little blood, right?”

“I’m known to take safety measures, love.” Klaus shrugs nonchalantly. “What, do you wish to say goodbye to your mortal lover first?”

The blonde exhales, already tired of the cycled argument. “He’s not my lover. And stop saying mortal as if it’s an insult to the gods. _I’m_ mortal.”

“A sole flaw, I must admit,” Klaus teases, earning a small smile in return, not that Caroline could help it.

At first she had owed him a debt, it’s true. Her mother had gone ill and she made a bargain with the devil for her life, hired witches to summon the god of death himself in order to cheat the old woman’s inevitable end. She had known him by another name, then, one used by mortals: Hades.

He had asked for her assistance in his schemes, although why she’d be of importance she still has not figured out until now. Her mother lived to this day away in a small cottage on the other side of the globe, perfectly unaware she had a daughter who sacrificed her whole existence for her recovery.

Over the years that she’s worked with Klaus, it’s hard not to see the man underneath the god. He is cruel and vicious, but he never treated her like a pet or a minion. He engaged her in intelligent conversations, taught her the art of deceit, called her lovely names without any agenda. And when her time had been up and she’s paid enough to be free, Caroline had chosen to stay.

“He is a good man, Klaus,” Caroline tries to reason again. Despite being around the god of the underworld for years, she still maintains her moral compass and light. Sometimes she thinks it’s the sole reason Klaus keeps her around.

This time the god sneers, spine straightening and jaw locking. “Good, bad, they’re the same to us gods, Caroline: all are disposable.”

“Even me?” She whispers but shakes her head sadly. “Forget it. Go complete your stupid ritual, see if I care.”

Klaus looks at her steadily for a few seconds before nodding and turning away. Only when he’s about to close the doors does her turn back towards her. “You will understand soon enough, Caroline. When the ritual is complete I will no longer just be the god of death and of the underworld, cursed to be alone, an outsider amongst my siblings. After this I will be the god of everything.”

“If it means that much to you,” Caroline forces a smile before pointedly facing the windows again.

Klaus hovers for a second before finally sighing and walking away.

-

“Caroline?” Stefan whispers in disbelief at the figure she cuts against the stark darkness and plainness of the room. He’s at the center of a rune on the hard floor,

the drawing taking up almost half the space. Candles were lit all around him, his hands bound in the similar metal ropes as hers earlier, but Caroline had an inkling his wouldn’t feel as warm or caressing as her ropes did.

It’s shocking to see Stefan the way he is now, helpless and powerless against a god he never saw coming. His once muscular frame is gone, replaced by lanky limbs with his height shrinking by almost half a feet. Gone was the brave hero who defeated Nessus in the clearing for her, or the man women from all over the country swooned over. Not for the first time, Caroline felt the stirrings of guilt deep in her stomach, but contrary to what Klaus seemed to think, it’s not because of some newfound love or mortal desire for the man. Stefan is good, and loving, and he doesn’t deserve to die.

With renewed vigor, Caroline strides forward.

“No!” She barely registers the sound of Klaus’ voice, frantic and filled with bone-deep horror, before she steps inside the rune. Instantly her senses are assaulted with pain, pain, pain, down to her marrow and up to the tips of sparse blonde hairs on her pale skin, and she plunges to the ground.

She could hear Stefan calling out her name, could feel herself being lifted up in the air as Klaus’ magic beckons her towards him. She drops in his arms, the feel of them warm and soft like a mattress, cushioning her fall.

“The rune is spelled so that whoever dares to enter and free the demigod shall die,” Klaus whispers, breaths uneven as he scanned Caroline’s body. There are no physical injuries, but he knows the damage is really on the inside, attacking her nerves, setting them on fire, poisoning her organs until they all fail her. He had been extremely precise on the magic he used. Her heart would be the last one to stop functioning, as to ensure that she is aware that she had failed in her endeavors, stare into his eyes as life slowly leaves her body and her soul is sentenced to be his eternal prisoner. “Why did you try to save him, love?”

There is pain in his voice, a certain distress Caroline would never have thought to hear from the god. His fingers trace the contours of her face delicately, as if he is afraid that with one wrong touch she would crumble in his arms. She isn’t certain that she wouldn’t. She tries to lift a hand to his cheek but only manages a slight jolt. “He’s a good man.”

Klaus looks up and both Stefan and Caroline are surprised to see tears lining his usually cold blue eyes, now filled with grief and fear. “You will die for this.”

Stefan huffs through his nose, shakes his head. “She wouldn’t want me to die.”

Caroline stops moving in his arms.

The god of death stops short, fingers trying to look for a pulse he already knows would not be there, tries to ignore the pink flush leaving her cheeks until all that’s left is pale, pale, pale.

She’s gone.

Klaus lets out a cry; all the candles flicker out.

-

“Stefan will be here soon,” Caroline tells him, face void of any color and skin as cold as can be. “He will want to bargain for my soul. Die for it, even.”

Klaus doesn’t look at her directly. “I know.”

“Will you let him?” She asks, making the god pause in his tracks. “Take my soul?”

He lets a controlled breath leave him, but Caroline could feel it blow against her face as if he is standing right in front of her and not on the opposite side of the room. “Your soul is mine. But I just may be convinced.”

There is a pang of hurt in her chest, numbed by the clear distress in the god’s face ever since the night before when she took her final breath. “Do my presence really appall you so much that you’d be willing to bargain with your brother’s son?”

A shrill laugh leaves Klaus’ mouth, and before she knew it he’s crowding her space, the edges of the black skirt of her dress touching his trousers. “You’d think that after all these years you would have known by now how much I want you, Caroline.”

Caroline inhales sharply at the words, unable to hear past the echoing of them in her mind. “What…”

“But not like this,” the god continues. “Never like this. Never without your free will. You are a prisoner here, love. Forever. You may never leave. But not if I let your soul go, and let the hero beg his father for your life back.”

As expected, the sound of Stefan’s voice can be heard from where they stood, only a few feet away. He still calls Klaus by the name the morals had given him.

Finally, Caroline sighs, takes Klaus’ hand into her own. “You’d think that after all these years you would have known by now that forever is all I’ve ever wanted. With you.”

Breath leaves the god in a swift suction, like a deflating balloon flailing about, unable to comprehend anything except for the elation of flying. Stefan’s voice still rings in the hallways of his castle, calling out his false name, all bravado and heroism and determination. Klaus blocks it out. There are more pressing matters at hand.

After all, the king of the underworld finally found his queen; and what a queen she is, to have found him back.


End file.
